page_title: United States Marine Corps
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: United States Marine Corps / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Peter J. Ortiz, U.S. Marine Corps
context_page_description: The United States Marine Corps, also referred to as the United States Marines, is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations with the United States Navy as well as the Army and Air Force. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States.
  The Marine Corps has been a component of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834, working closely with naval forces. The USMC operates installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical aviation squadrons, primarily Marine Fighter Attack squadrons, are also embedded in Navy carrier air wings and operate from the aircraft carriers.
  The history of the Marine Corps began when two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as a service branch of infantry troops capable of fighting both at sea and on shore. In the Pacific theater of World War II the Corps took the lead in a massive campaign of amphibious warfare, advancing from island to island.
context_section_description: In World War II, the Marines performed a central role in the Pacific War, along with the U.S. Army. The battles of Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, Cape Gloucester, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa saw fierce fighting between Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army. Some 600,000 Americans served in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II.
  The Battle of Iwo Jima, which began on 19 February 1945, was arguably the most famous Marine engagement of the war.  The Japanese had learned from their defeats in the Marianas Campaign and prepared many fortified positions on the island including pillboxes and network of tunnels. The Japanese put up fierce resistance, but American forces reached the summit of Mount Suribachi on 23 February. The mission was accomplished with high losses of 26,000 American casualties and 22,000 Japanese.
  The Marines played a comparatively minor role in the European theater. Nonetheless, they did continue to provide security detachments to U.S. embassies, and ships, contributed personnel to small, special ops teams dropped into Nazi-occupied Europe as part of Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor to the CIA) missions, and acted as staff planners, and trainers for U.S. Army amphibious operations, including the Normandy landings.
  By the end of the war, the Corps expanded from two brigades to six divisions, five air wings, and supporting troops, totaling about 485,000 Marines. In addition, 20 defense battalions and a parachute battalion were raised. Nearly 87,000 Marines were casualties during World War II (including nearly 20,000 killed), and 82 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
  In 1942, the Navy Seabees were created with the Marine Corps providing their organization and military training.  Many Seabee units were issued the USMC standard issue and were re-designated "Marine". Despite the Corps's giving them their military organization, military training, issuing them uniforms and redesignating their units the Seabees remained Navy. USMC historian Gordon L. Rottmann wrote that one of the "Navy's biggest contributions to the Marine Corps during WWII was the creation of the Seabees."
  Despite Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal's prediction that the Marine flag raising at Iwo Jima meant "a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years", the Corps faced an immediate institutional crisis following the war due to a suddenly shrunken budget. Army generals pushing for a strengthened and reorganized defense establishment attempted to fold the Marine mission and assets into the Navy and Army. Drawing on hastily assembled Congressional support, and with the assistance of the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals", the Marine Corps rebuffed such efforts to dismantle the Corps, resulting in statutory protection of the Marine Corps in the National Security Act of 1947.
  Shortly afterward, in 1952 the Douglas–Mansfield Act afforded the Commandant an equal voice with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters relating to the Marines and established the structure of three active divisions and air wings that remain today.
caption: Former French Foreign Legion Lieutenant, and U.S. Marine Corps officer Peter J. Ortiz, who served in the European theater, often behind enemy lines
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